Lean on me and let us walk this path together
by Hannahmayski
Summary: Shibi doesn't normally go for walks, and when he does he doesn't usually take Tsume with him. But tonight they did. And that changes everything. Or Shibi and Tsume adopt Shisui because everyone else is incompetent. Uchiha Week Day 2


**Full Summary: Shibi doesn't normally go for walks, and when he does he doesn't usually take Tsume with him.**

 **But tonight they did. And that changes everything.**

 **Or**

 **Shibi and Tsume adopt Shisui because everyone else is incompetent.**

 **Uchiha Week day 2**

 **prompt: Afterlife / Immortality / Rebirth / Eternity**

* * *

It is an ordinary night when Shibi decides to take a different walk through the forest, and down the stream to a small beach where the massive cliff faces end.

It's a coincidence that Tsume decides to accompany him that night, tired from filling out paperwork and raising two children, she says she needed some fresh air.

It is a fluke that Shibi wonders over to the tiny beach that evening, searching for a small smooth rock to show little Shino but it is fate that Tsume looks out into the water and curses so violently that Shibi flinches hard enough he drops the rocks he was comparing and looks out to where Tsume is already walking on top of the water.

And then Shibi spots it – a body floating face down in the Naka river. The Uchiha crest is planted brightly on the person's back and Tsume is dragging him back to shore quicker than Shibi has seen her move in a long time.

She gently lowers him to the ground and Shibi clenches his jaw at the sight. The shinobi is unmistakably Uchiha Shisui but what makes Shibi pause, what makes his stomach lurch is the two missing eyes that still bleed diluted pink blood and how so incredibly _young_ he looks.

Shibi frowns and shoots Tsume a look. "I'll handle this," he says, surprising himself with how tense the words come out. "Go." They need the Hokage for this. And a medic. A very good medic.

Shibi holds two fingers to Shisui's neck and grits his teeth when he finds no pulse.

Lighting release is Shibi's worst element, but he hammers through the signs anyway, slams his hand on Shisui's chest and tries to only send a small amount through his fingers.

Shisui jerks under his touch, back arching and Shibi searches for a pulse again. Seconds feel like hours but Shisui remains far too still.

Shibi bites his lip and slams through the seals again, channelling the lightning into his palms and through to Shisui.

Shibi's mind races, never louder than right now as a young man's life hangs in the balance of Shibi's choices.

Shibi's seen shinobi die before and has had loved ones die in front of him but this is different and he's not entirely sure how.

Maybe because Shisui looks an awful lot like Shino. Maybe because it's the notion that such a horrific event has occurred on their own soil. Maybe it's because Shisui's pale skin and his mess of a body that strikes something in Shibi's chest.

That one day, Shino could be the one who washes up on a beach long since dead.

Shibi has his hand on the boy's neck, a second away from going through the hand seals once again as a pulse beats against Shibi's fingers. It's not as strong as it needs to be, but Shibi can't fight his smile.

Shisui heaves in a wet and painful sounding gasp and he turns Shisui on his side as he coughs up water and trembles on the unforgiving stones. After the coughing dies down Shisui only shakes harder, his body weak.

Shibi pulls his upper body into his arms, so Shisui's cheek is pressed into Shibi's flak jacket. Shisui's empty eye sockets flutter open gazing out into nowhere. Shibi carefully reaches up and as gently as he can, closes his eyelids. Shisui flinches at the touch regardless.

"Shisui?" Shibi calls out a little louder than he would normally speak and Shisui flinches again, his hands shake so hard that Shibi's heart aches in sympathy.

"Shisui, I am Aburame Shibi, can you hear me?" he asks and Shisui opens his mouth to reply but no words come out.

Shisui tenses in his arms, breathing increasing and Shibi hushes him as best he can, running a careful hand through Shisui's hair. He knows it's a childish thing to do, as it works on Shino when he's had a bad dream or feeling distress of any kind, but Shibi is desperate and Shisui needs at least one thing to make this a little easier.

The shaking doesn't ease but Shisui's breathing slowly, so, so slowly relaxes to something that's tolerable.

"Leave," is the first thing that Shisui forces out but the rest fades out, his lips moving but his body far too weak to manage anything more. Shisui still tries.

"Leave me," he gasps out and his voice comes out barely more than a whisper, but it sounds so loud in Shibi's head he clutches Shisui closer to his chest.

Shibi knows what he's trying to say, and the amount of pain in suffering in those two words is so thick that Shibi can almost taste it.

"I will not," Shibi says and he chest clenches as Shisui lets out an involuntary moan of so much pain.

Shisui coughs into Shibi's chest and Shibi slowly pulls Shisui into his arms, trying to avoid the worst of his injuries even as Shisui's hand weakly reaches up and ends up grasping Shibi's chest.

He can't even move his head from where it's resting against Shibi. "Hurts," he says, and the words break halfway through, so quiet and broken that Shibi almost misses it.

There isn't much that Shibi is affected by anymore but he finds himself holding back tears of his own.

Maybe it's how vulnerable Shisui is, why Shisui told Shibi to leave him to die or maybe how Shisui is so light and small in his arms and shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Shibi doesn't know why this boy strikes something deep, deep in Shibi's soul, but that doesn't matter right now.

Shibi gathers Shisui into his arms, trying to be as careful as possible. "Don't worry," Shibi whispers as he stands up. "I'll handle things from here."

Shisui doesn't react to his words, but the hand grasping at his chest doesn't let go.

He'll save this boy. He'll save him for sure.

* * *

Tsume leans over Shisui's bed, running a careful hand through his hair as slowly and methodically as she can as Shisui's only eye stares out into nothing.

She calls to him gently and Shibi keeps a firm grasp on Shisui's limp hand. Shisui takes a sudden deep breath and blinks sluggishly but Shibi can see his eye clears and he gazes at Tsume for a long, confused moment.

"Morning, pup," Tsume says and for all of Tsume's rowdiness and violent tendencies, around anyone she believes needs some help, she can be as tender as anything. And Shisui needs all the love he can get right now.

Recognition suddenly flies across his face, accompanied by a distinct look of panic, and that was the exact reason Shibi had demanded he be here when Shisui wakes.

After that horrific experience, there would be no graceful, calm awakening. A nurse hovers around them both, checking vitals and the eye that Shisui just had transplanted back into his head.

 _Danzou,_ was responsible for Shisui's extremely close brush with death. _Danzou_ tore out Shisui's eye and tried to have him killed and it was _Danzou_ who basically left Shisui with no other choice than to kill himself.

It had been lucky that Shisui had given his other eye to Itachi and they were able to transplant it back in and it was thanks to the ANBU, who unusually seemed particularly disturbed about the events, that Danzou now lay dead.

Shibi has quietly raged by Shisui's bedside, thinking of the amount of pressure Shisui and Itachi have been under and the fact those two children were trying to prevent a civil war that only the Uchiha and a select few knew about.

The two ANBU – Hound and Cat – that had volunteered to guard Shisui 's hospital room seemed to agree if their angry, pulsing chakra was anything to go by.

Tsume hushes him, running her hand through Shisui's tangled locks and Shibi runs his thumb across the back of Shisui's fragile and bruised beyond recognition hand and he swivels his head in Shibi's direction.

Half his head is bandaged and Shisui's skin is pale enough to match the bed sheets.

"I told you I'd handle it," Shibi says quietly. "You don't need to worry."

Shisui slowly reaches up a bandaged hand to his face and runs his shaky fingers across his eyelid.

He blinks slowly up at them both and takes a shaky breath. "How did…" he asks but his voice dies out halfway through but Tsume and Shibi get the message well enough.

"The eye that Danzou took from you was destroyed when the ANBU took him out," Tsume says. "But the eye you gave to Itachi we managed to put back in."

Shisui's face goes even paler and Shibi sits down so he's not leaning over Shisui, Tsume following his lead. "It's fine now," Shibi says carefully. "Itachi is fine if only desperate to see you, and I believe the two ANBU just outside the door know you too? They seemed disturbed to hear of what happened."

"Hound and Cat," Tsume supplies and Shisui doesn't exactly smile, instead it comes off as more of a grimace but Shibi can tell he's happy all the same.

Tsume grins and looks up at Shibi, her excitement tangible. Itachi, Shino, Kiba and Sasuke, and the two ANBU are outside, and while it's unlikely Shibi will be able to convince the ANBU to leave their posts, no matter how much they would like to see Shisui alive and awake, he's sure Shisui will benefit from Itachi's presence.

Tsume's hand is still tangled in Shisui's hair and he runs her hands through it again. "Do you want to see Itachi?"

It's obvious that Shisui wants to say yes, but he hesitates, glancing down at his bruised and bandaged arms and it's more than clear that he doesn't want Itachi to see him so weak and vulnerable.

It's always worse for shinobi, when your entire career relies on your body's strength and suddenly it's difficult to sit up, to drink, to eat, to stand, it takes a lot out of _every_ shinobi, and Shisui is no exception.

"He won't mind. He's been worried out of his mind about you," which is true, Itachi watched Shisui by most standards, die. Itachi watched his only friend tear out his eye, and kill himself.

And if Shibi had to hold Itachi in his arms as he cried in sheer relief that his best friend would live, well, Shibi promised him he wouldn't say a thing to anyone.

Shibi had held Itachi in his arms as he cried an entire lifetimes worth of pain and stress onto Shibi's shirt and Shibi found himself _frustrated._

These young shinobi suffering beyond the scope of anything Shibi could have imagined at his age.

Tsume stands up, hurrying out of the room to find Itachi and Shisui suddenly looks so exhausted the nurse still in the room checks him over again.

"Thank you," Shisui says so softly that Shibi almost misses it.

The nurse backs of then, straying towards the wall where she's out of the way to give them some privacy.

"It's fine," Shibi says. "As long as you're okay."

Shisui nods and looks up at the ceiling. "How long was I out?"

"Three days since I found you," Shibi runs his thumb over the back of Shisui's hand again as Shisui digests the information.

"I'm going to be in a lot of trouble," Shisui says more to himself than to Shibi but it raises Shibi's concern anyway.

"Tried to kill myself," Shisui rasps out and it comes out so matter of fact, so distant. Shibi remembers Shisui had tried to get Shibi to leave him there in the beginning, and he wonders if to Shisui, dying would be finally freeing himself of the pain.

To die meant he was free. Even if Shisui didn't consciously realise that's what he wanted, Shibi finds that he wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Tsume bustles into the room, one arm around Itachi's shoulders and the three kids trailing behind. Shisui's face lights up at Itachi's presence and as Shibi shares another knowing look with Tsume, Shibi makes up his mind.

Shisui and Itachi deserve someone – an adult figure in their life – to give them some sort of support and since the rest of Konoha has proved itself incompetent, it just means Shibi and Tsume will have to step up to the mark.

Shibi helps prop the hospital bed up so Shisui can see and finds he doesn't mind at all.

If anything, he finds himself looking forward to it.

* * *

 **WOW look another shisui lives fic**

 **(sorry for any errors and any medical inaccuracies!)**

 **Comments are the only thing that** keep **me alive!**


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